Telemetry involves machines and sensors collecting and sending data to a central point for storage or analysis. Wireless sensors, the Internet, and Internet-enabled devices have expanded telemetry use to numerous applications. Machine to Machine (M2M) refers to technologies that allow both wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices of the same type. M2M is an integral part of the Internet of Things (IoT), which denotes advanced connectivity of devices. Wireless transfer of data from sensors or devices conventionally involves a sensor or device with wireless communication capabilities sending data to a wireless access point and/or or to a gateway data collector, for example. The wireless access point or gateway data collector may, in turn, transfer the data to a central repository or “the cloud,” where the data may be held for future access or analysis. FIG. 1 shows a conventional data capture process where sensors/devices 110 broadcast data long-range to a wireless access point 111, which in turn sends the captured data to a gateway data collector 112, which may send the data to a central repository or cloud 102. Long-range broadcast of data from the sensors or devices affects battery life of the sensor/device, and often requires more expensive sensors or devices. Specifically, broadcasting data over long distances may drastically reduce service life of battery powered sensors or devices, thereby necessitating that more robust sensors/devices be used.
In wireless transmission of information, the amount of energy used is proportional to the distance that information is broadcast and the frequency of such broadcasts. Battery life of sensors may be optimized by increasing the number of wireless access points that retrieve information broadcast from the sensors because with an increased number of wireless access points the sensors would not have to transmit information as far. However, increasing the number of wireless access points requires a large upfront investment. An upfront investment in robust sensors, devices, and/or wireless access points, however, is often unjustified because not everything needs high speed wireless communication capabilities and many applications only require periodic (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly) data collection. Accordingly, the type of “real-time” messaging infrastructure that robust sensors, devices, wireless access points, and/or gateway data collectors enable is often unnecessary in a particular application. Several applications may only need periodic, batch collection of data from sensors or devices. The present invention addresses some of the problems inherent in conventional data collection from sensors or devices.